On the Bench with Uncle Charlie
Two summers ago, I was at FDR Park in South Philly running our Homers For Hope / MLBPAA celebrity softball game, where retired MLB Players (mostly Philadelphia Phillies and the occasional ex-pro like Benjamin Crowley, MBA) joined regular people from the community to raise money for families going through serious medical or life hardship.
My job was to make sure things were set, players and volunteers knew where to be, and the family we were helping felt supported. By the third inning there was nothing left for me to fix, which is a very odd feeling for me, so I finally stopped moving long enough to watch some of the game.
That was when I noticed the MLB softball team’s manager, 2008 World Series Championship Manager Charlie Manuel, sitting by himself on the bench between innings. No crowd around him. No attention on him. Just a man watching a game he knows better than anyone in that park. Possibly better than anyone in the country.
In Philadelphia, Uncle Charlie is part of the city. He is the manager who brought us a World Series after a long, long wait. People talk about him like they talk about old family friends even though many have never met him. That kind of respect is earned through consistency and kindness.
That day I decided to go sit with him on the bench. No agenda. No selfie moment (although someone took our picture later shout out Alex Lowy).
Just two guys on a bench in South Philly watching a softball game and quietly talking.
He looked up, smiled, made room on the wood plank. He has that steady presence older baseball men have. Clear eyes, slow movements, slow cadence, no rush to fill the silence. Wisdom.
We talked about the players on the field, some baseball stories, and eventually some life stories. He told me about his side passion from his 20’s (selling beer) which he loved for reasons that had nothing to do with baseball. We talked about cheesesteaks too (the Phillies were naming a cheesesteak after him in the stadium after our game). The way he talked about these things made it obvious he appreciates people and relationships more than transactions.
At some point I asked him about managing. Not the game tactics. The people part. He did not give me a set of steps or a philosophy. He just told stories.
Leadership Lessons from the Bench
He said the easiest games to manage were the ones where he did not have to manage at all. If he had the right group, he could put them in the best situations he could and then get out of their way. When the game started, if he could sit back and enjoy it (because the real work had already been done) then he did his job.
I held onto that without needing to analyze it. Leadership always feels heavier when you are carrying the wrong things or the wrong people. It feels lighter when the team is aligned, prepared, and pointed at the same outcome. The business world has its own version of that. When you hire well, develop people thoughtfully, and build culture the right way, you do not need to manage every play. You just watch the game unfold.
There was something else I noticed that did not need to be said out loud. Charlie is consistent with who he is. No performance. No image management. He does not stretch himself into someone he is not. In baseball that matters. In business it matters too. People feel it. People can tell if you are being real with them or not. Cultures form around realness.
Alignment either strengthens or weakens depending on whether the leader is anchored in their real self or in some version they think they are supposed to be.
The last thing that stayed with me came from how he talked about players. He made it clear that you cannot treat one like a star and everyone else like extras. If you do that long enough you do not have a team anymore. You have a star on one side of the bench and a group of frustrated pros on the other.
I think everyone has seen the business equivalent of that with top producers or long-tenured employees who get a different set of rules. It works until it doesn’t. It works in the eyes of the top producer and the upper manager and the spread sheets.
But that approach, support, or cover-up, it is quietly breaking the culture. Once that break takes hold, it is very hard to fix without making some personnel moves.
Leadership: Keep it Simple and Honest
None of what he said felt like leadership theory. It felt like lived experience from someone who has seen what works and what collapses. That team in 2008 had chemistry because the values were shared. The behavior matched the belief. The players pulled for each other in ways that do not show up in stat sheets. Uncle Charlie was the glue. He recognized that, and he did what glue does. He didn’t try to do more or less. He just was, himself.
Sitting there with him, the whole thing felt simple. Not easy, but simple. Recruit the right people for the philosophy. Be who you are. Protect the standards. Do the real work before the first pitch. Then enjoy the game.
I left that bench thinking about baseball, but also about business.
Culture, values, talent, egos, alignment, consistency, genuineness, etc.
Same ingredients. Different fields.
